Checking crime reports and other important data on your own can help you in selecting a neighborhood to move to.

Many homebuyers are concerned about crime and other safety issues when planning on moving to a new area. While the Santa Clarita area has been listed as one of the FBI’s safest cities for multiple years, you may want to check the specific area that you’re thinking of moving to just to be sure you’re not missing any important information. Shopping for a home is also shopping for a neighborhood, so it’s always a good idea to drive around the neighborhood you’re considering to make sure that it suits your needs and your style.

CrimeReports offers a mapping service that shows all crimes within given timeframes (3, 7, 14 and 30 days are standard) around a specified address. The map above shows crime around my office at 27720 Dickason Drive in Valencia for a 30-day period.

Interesting to note is that many of the crimes reported for this sample area are thefts from unlocked vehicles. Also reported are shoplifting and domestic violence, so you’ll want to look at the details provided to see what types of crimes are present in an area. Incidents are reported by block, not by location, and multiple incidents in an area are indicated by a computer icon. Items marked with a T on the map above are thefts (including shoplifting), TV are thefts from autos (including unlocked autos), A’s are assault (including domestic violence), B is breaking and entering (whether forcible or not), V is the theft of a vehicle. Note that there are no homicides or sexual offenses reported in this sample report.

If you’re looking for homes with a Realtor, there are limitations as to what she (or he) can tell you about an area without getting into potential legal hot water. Realtors cannot tell you the demographics of an area (race, religion, ethnicity) without being in violation of the Federal Fair Housing Act, so if that is a concern to you, it’s best to check the US Census Data on your own. For crime statistics, checking CrimeReports or similar resources would be your best option, since Realtors are not likely to be watching and tracking the police blotters for a given area as well as these reporting services can. For school ratings, you can check out GreatSchools or similar sites, but do watch the results on these because if a name is used more than once in a state in city names or in school names, you’ll often get multiple areas combined (a search for Valencia CA includes the Santa Clarita area plus schools in Fullerton, Laguna Hills, San Francisco, Covina, Pico Rivera, Placentia and more).

Santa Clarita Realtor Linda Slocum is a Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE) and Certified Residential Specialist (CRS) specializing in Santa Clarita residential real estate, REOs and short sales. You can reach her at 661.670.0349 or at Linda@SantaClaritaRealEstateBlog.com. To search for Santa Clarita homes, use our neighborhood search tools or visit HoneyStartPacking.com.

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